Now, back to hermeneutics.... (woo-hoo)

In the book, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, make a modernistic claim, "the only proper control for hermeneutics is to be found in the original intent of the bilbical text" (p. 25). Now, you may be saying to yourself, "yes," Fee and Stuart have it right, the Bible ought to be understood in its original context. However, this is the problem with modern biblical hermeneutics (modern biblical hermeneutics are not the same as contemporary biblical hermeneutics) the modern methodology of biblical interpretation, only accounts for the human author, e.g. Paul, Peter, Moses, ... etc. So who is the other author? The Holy Spirit. Remember if God is omniscient - or all-knowing - then God sees all of time. So the Holy Spirit can understand a future context and direct the human author to write the biblical text in such a manner that the text can speak to a specific situation during July 10, 2004. Now the human author might only understand the present situation in which the Holy Spirit has inspired him to write about, e.g. 1 Corinthians, Paul would understand the context and meaning of 1 Corinthians as it pertains to the church in Corinth. Yet, the Holy Spirit would understand the fuller context of the revelation involved in 1 Corinthians. The other problem is that we cannot know what the intent of the human author is, to know someone's intent, we need to know what he is thinking, know what's inside his mind. Why do Fee & Stuart claim that the text cannot mean anything other than what it meant in its original context? Because, they hold to a modern hermeneutic and are seeking certainty. I would say that they are looking for Cartesian certainty, but I do not know if they have actually ever read Rene Descartes - but I would assume that they have.

But, scholars such as Fee and Stuart - no doubt Fee and Stuart are evangelical Christians who have done much service, especially through their scholarship, for the kingdom of God - also believe that the original manuscripts of Scripture, or the original autographs, are the true Word of God. Well, most textual critics - Gordon Fee is one of these textual critics - believe that the biblical translations that we use now contain about 97% of the original autographs... wow that's great!! Oh, wait a minute, what 3% of the scriptures do I read that is not the Word of God? Well, we don't know for sure because we do not have the original autographs. (Again, I think this view of needing to have the original autographs is related to the search for certainty.) If God is involved in the transmission process - transmission process would include, translations, critical editions, and assembling the Scripture - then we need not be concerned with how much of the original autographs that we do or do not have, because God has inspired the transmission process.

Now, how are the two related. Obviously, one deals with the authorship of Scripture and the other is concerned with the preservation of Scripture. All too often we rely upon ourselves and our ability to understand God. We do not realize what God is doing or what God is trying to tell us. All we know is that God is in control. I have raised some major points and will try to answer some of them in later blog entries. I haven't answered any questions but only raised questions this time.